Armenia improves its rating of trading across borders

Armenia improved 3 out of 10 indicators assessing the easiness of doing business: Dealing with Construction Permits (by 10 points), Enforcing Contracts (8 points), Trading Across Borders (29 points). The last indicator increased from the 58th place in the previous report to the 29th mainly due to the successfully facilitated procedures of documentation (including customs clearance) and affordability of the related payments.  According to the report, Armenia's neighbors in the report by the given indicator were Bosnia & Herzegovina (28th place) and Swaziland (30). Belarus was the only post-Soviet country to leave Armenia behind (25th) by Trading Across Borders.  

 

Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year's ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included 

in this year's ranking.  Data in Doing Business 2016 are current as of June 1, 2015. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why. This year's Doing Business report continues a two-year process of introducing improvements in 8 of 10 Doing Business indicator sets-to complement the emphasis on the efficiency of regulation with a greater focus on its quality.  

 

According to the National Rating Agency AmRating, despite the high place Armenia received in WB Doing Business report, many international organizations, and the World Bank too, openly say that corruption, monopoly, political outrage and oligarchy in Armenia are major obstacles to the development of free entrepreneurships, business ideas, and investment climate. Experts say that Doing Business report does not take into account the imperfectness of the judicial system in Armenia, which needs serious reform and independence from the government - the WB experts have repeatedly mentioned this too.  According to the National Statistics Service, 

the trade turnover of Armenia for Jan-May 2015 totaled $1.6billion, with a 32.3% year-over-year decline.  Exports fell 15.2% to $488.7 million, amid 38% decline of imports to $1.1 billion. In Jan-Aug 2015, foreign turnover exceeded $3 billion (down 19.5% y-o-y), particularly, exports grew 0.5% to $967 million, with important falling by 26.3% to $2.074 billion.